Hey everyone! I started a White Widow photo type on 8/14/21. I think everything has gone well, it had about 10 tops, I then topped like 7 or 8 of them, and the pictures show the current plant state, so i think that worked out well, but the leaves are all a lot smaller than the original leaves before topping, my guess, its spreading the growth to all, which keeps the leaves smaller, anyways who knows. Back on point. When do I switch to flower? I’m in a grow tent, 2x4x6 currently. I read somewhere you don’t want to let the plant be too much bigger than its pot size before flower, this way, when the stretch comes on, roots have better room to grow.
I also have a question about defoliating, I have done two previous defoliations. It’s quite busy in there right now, what should I get rid of, and when should I do it? Now in veg, or first couple weeks of flower?
I know it’s a lot to ask, and I do appreciate the help guys, I promise to absorb the knowledge and not ask same questions again! lol
When to switch to flower is a personal preference. You can absolutely switch to flower now if you want to. I remove anything I don’t want to grow out or anything that just won’t get enough light to grow out to anything substantial. This takes time to learn in my opinion… I do it right before switching to flower. People do this differently though and at different times.
If it were me, I would flip soon or you’ll have an absolute monster of a plant to take care of, lmao. Over 2 months veg is pretty long
Thank you. I forget to mention, it’s in a 5 gal pot.
I was watching a YT video the other day, and the guy mentioned he was defoliating trying to stress the plant out a bit at beginning of flower. Can you tell me anything about this?
Defoliation as an attempt to stress the plant? This doesn’t make sense to me personally… You defoliate at the beginning of flower to allow better airflow and to selective only grow out what will result in something worth while. If you never defoliate lower growth, you will have a bunch of “larfy” “popcorn buds” because the lower growth gets less light that upper growth, and cannabis is an apical growing plant, meaning the tops of the plant gets more growth than the lower parts.
Honestly, I hate to say it but a lot of guys I have seen on YouTube don’t really know what they are doing / do questionable things for questionable reasons.
A few of the good places to get info are GreenGenes channel, and Apogee Instruments channel.
On the forum I would look at journals from @Hellraiser. He goes into much detail and isn’t scared of questions. A quite literal gold mine if info in his journals.
Putting stress on your plant can lead to unpleasant results. The idea is to defoliate a plant in stages. I defoliate all through vegetative stage, lollipop just before switching to flower and let the plant go after that. I might remove older fan leaves but I don’t want the plant stressed during flower.
Here is one thing to keep in mind. The picture is of a 7’ tent and you should replace your measurements with those in the photo. But ultimately plant height will become an issue. White widows are not a small compact plant. The photo uses doubling in size from flip. This should be a safe assumption providing some LST is done.
That brings me to the next point. If you have one plant in a 2x4 tent, a round shape is not maximizing the space. It would make sense to shape and train the plant to a more oval / rectangular shape.
Here is an example. The plants are clones and because of growth patterns a little more difficult to work with. But, should give you an idea.
Take a look at your plant and see if it has a natural dividing line to go in opposite directions.
I can’t stand back far enough to get the tent’s entire width in frame. The tent is full.
Lastly, a couple more observations. The plant looks great. The bottom defoliation is what she needed. Now I would concentrate on the middle and center of the plant. Open it up by removing secondary branches and growth tips. At this point you want to concentrate the plants resources to 8, 10 or 12 colas.
For what it is worth
Thank you for taking the time to break that down. I actually have a new tent coming in next week, its another 2x4, but its true dimensions are 55 x 28 x 80. The extra height should hopefully keep everything clear. I’m gonna switch to flower soon. I’m gonna prune and defoliate this weekend, then give it a week or so to recoup, then switch to flower. I completely understand the training method to make the plant more rectangular.
The new tent will be used for flower I plan to only use one half of the tent for now, I have a SF-1000, meant for a 2x2 tent. But figure it will be fine for one plant. I run a SP-2000 in my current 2x4 with some autos, and it’s been pretty great. I also have a scrog net, I will set it up, get this thing trimmed up, and then shoot you back a picture next week in its final home before flower.
One last question, when you say thin, do you mean get rid off all branches inside that are not getting light? and/or, trim the bigger fan leaves from the lower part of the branches that are already at the canopy? Maybe attach a picture of a well groomed tree, and if you think I should defoliate to that level now. Like I said, I can switch to flower as soon as next week.
The added height will definitely help. I’d throw the 2000 in the flower tent. 11-12 weeks is a long veg time. The longest I went is 10. Keep the canopy flat and even and you will have great buds.
To this week, this plant is now 10 weeks old. So looks like it’s perfect timing. I had a few minutes and went to hacking this plant. Let me know your thoughts. I have a bunch of tops, because i topped like 9 tops a while back. Maybe I should have done less. Pics to follow.
Seriously that looks about perfect. You want to be able to see through it and through the top to the pot.
It is hard to cut that much out and it is even harder when they have flowers growing on them. This is just me, when I have it at about where yours is I then ask when one are the best, most viable, will get the most light. Then I talk myself into what to keep and what still needs to go. For you, I would leave it where it is, but keep those questions in mind as it grows and especially during stretch.
It will grow a lot and in a couple days you will think it wasn’t touched.
Looks good
Just wanted to share an update on my progress the last couple weeks. I got my new (taller) tent. I think everything fits nicely and will be fine height wise. Here are some pictures taken this morning. I did notice a very few leaves with something going on. Maybe it’s something obvious you could point out. I switched to a 12/12 light cycle on 11/4/21. So 11 days. I thought I would get more stretching, but maybe that is still to come. Anyway, I would to hear any thoughts on the plant, the grow area, and leaves that are showing signs of stress. I did give a mild dose of nutes (Flora series) this morning, and my EC level was 1.1ec, and the runoff was 1.6ec. I probably didn’t need to fertilize, but I’m still trying to get that nailed down. Anyway, thanks for reading. @beardless
The new set up is really nice. They will stretch for another week or so. Personally, I rarely have a plant actually double in height during the stretch. They may eventually get there depending on how much the colas grow.
I use ppm so when you sau e.c. is 1.1 is that 550ppm? Likewise 1.6 ec = 800. Or am I off on the conversions.
The brown spots look like calcium deficiency to me. Very common first part of flower. Have you supplemented with calmag at all?
You defoliation looks spot on to me. She should produce nice tall colas.
